


bush 1

by romanticalgirl



Series: December Ficlets 2007 [35]
Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:52:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl





	bush 1

It is the evenings that break him.

Not in half or in ways that show, but in the hairline cracks like wrinkles in his skin, starting to show in the creases around his eyes and his mouth and in his hands. Weathered skin growing soft and pale in the candlelight where he sits at his table or by his fire or on his bed and stares out at the night, sipping whiskey or rum or scotch until his throat burns with it and chases away anything that might have the lingering taste of regret.

During the day there is enough to keep him busy, occupied with menial tasks and paperwork that require nothing of a captain and everything of a Lieutenant, which suits him as he knows how to be one and has no clue of the other, save what he’s seen in the men he’s known – Nelson so brave and honest and bold in battle, Sawyer so broken and bent beyond recognition despite his tall stance and posture, and Hornblower so stoic and assured of victory even in the face of defeat – but he is none of those things. Neither too much of one or enough of the other or anywhere in between. He is a sailor and he knows the ships like his own flesh and he can make them bend to his will, but now he walks on land and courts them from a distance and they spurn every advance he makes.

He would laugh at his own fancy if it didn’t feel so raw and true, if it weren’t so clear that what he loves about his life is what he no longer has. He stares into fires and at papers, seeing nothing that lies in front of him, but a past that seems distant and a future that seems as empty as the view from his window, full of clouds and hills and of nothing of the sea.


End file.
